2024-04-25

data secure

5 Ways To Secure Your Data

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM04 mins

It’s never been more important to have comprehensive data security. Hacking is on the rise, as is malware and data loss. Many business entities and individuals are investing
major money into ensuring that their information is safe. Here are the top 5 ways to secure your data:

Use cloud services and/or data

centers—More and more companies are securing their data by utilizing online storage in the cloud, or cloud services, in order to centralize data in real time environments. Data centers like the Digital Realty Trust allow companies to colocate their services, host, and use cloud services in order to cut down on data loss and back up their data.

Steganography—Steganography has been around for a while. It involves hiding data inside of files so that they cannot be easily found. This can be as simple as storing programming code within a folder named “Pictures of Lily,” or it can be a complex process of using security schemes to embed data.

Protect your network—This can be cumbersome process but some would say it is crucial to ensuring that your information cannot be accessed by hackers. The first step is to change your wireless router password. Forget about hiding the Service Set Identifier, disabling DHCP, and filtering MAC addresses—these options will do little to actually protect your network. Your best bet is to throw out the WEP network and adopt WPA or WPA 2, which are encryption standards that use 128-bit encryption keys and a Temporary Key Integrity Protocol. This security should include your Xbox, Wii, laptops, and smartphones.

Encrypt your data—Do your own encrypting and make sure that even if a hacker or thief does get a hold of your hardware they won’t be able to access its data. A great option for this is TrueCrypt, a cross-platform software application for natively securing drives and folders.

Acquire browsing and downloading

privacy—Let’s face it, much of your most important data is entered by you as usernames and passwords while you’re browsing the Internet and downloading files. That’s why securing your Internet privacy and downloads is extremely important . Use an anonymous proxy service such as Vidalia in order to hide your online activity. These are five options for securing data. Combined they should provide you with an extremely valuable safety net against hacking, malware, and viruses. Many of these options, such as cloud computing, will include additional benefits like mor

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Test: How Secure Is Your Data?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM05 mins

With the increasing reliance on today’s computer systems and networks for the day to day running of businesses, there is an imminent threat to business continuity. Computer systems can be affected by a variety of sources: power outages, water leaks, systems failures, etc. Most companies have some sort of backup system in place, example UPS for power failure, but fail to take into account other hidden factors. It is no longer a question of if you will experience system or environment failures, but when. The 10-question quiz that follows can assist in assessing your company’s risk of experiencing downtime due to system or environment failures.

1. How many hours of continual data processing does your business do over a 24 hour period?
Threat: The average company’s hourly downtime accounts for $78,000 in lost revenue?
8 hours or less (10 points)
8 to 16 hours (75 points)
16 to 24 hours (100 points)

2. How much downtime can your business afford?
Threat: Computer downtime cost US businesses $4 billion a year, primarily through lost revenue.
1 week to 1 month (10 points)
2 days to 1 week (75 points)
1 day or less (100 points)

3. What is your business system or data worth?
Threat: 43% of U. S. Business never re-open after a disaster experience and 29% close with in 2 years.
$10,000 or less (10 points)
$10,000 to 100,000 (75 points)
$100,000 or more (100 points)

4. How many users does your computer system support?
Threat: The manufacturing industry lost an average of $421,000 per incident of on-line computer systems downtime.
1 to 10 users (10 points)
10 to 100 users (75 points)
100 or more users (100 points)

5. How much down time have you experienced over the last year?
Threat: The average company’s computer system was down 9 times per year for an average of 4 hours each time.
20 hours or less (10 points)
20 to 150 hours (75 points)
150 or more hours (100 points)

6. How many hours is your data center unattended?
Threat: The average company’s hourly downtime costs an average of $330,000 per outage.
1 hour or less (10 points)
1 hour to 8 hours (75 points)
8 hours or more (100 points)

7. What percentage of your systems and environmental conditions (temperature, water, and smoke) are you monitoring with an early detection system?
Threat: Environmental incident’s accounted for 10. 3% of business interruptions in the past 5 years.
90% or more (10 points)
70 to 90% (75 points)
70% or less (100 points)

8. How many hours has your UPS had to back up your system this year?
Threat: Power problems accounted for 29. 48% of U.S. computer outages.
3 or less hours (10 points)
3 to 8 hours (75 points)
8 or more hours (100 points)

9. If your system went down on Friday at midnight, how long would it be before you are notified?
Threat: A 1993 Gallup/GRN survey reported that Fortune 1000 companies average 1.6 hours of LAN downtime per week [that is over 2 weeks per year].
3 or less hours (10 points)
3 to 8 hours (75 points)
8 or more hours (100 points)

10. How many people have access to your main computer room ?
Threat: Human error accounted for 34. 4% of business interruptions in the past 5 years
3 or less (10 points)
3 to 10 (75 points)
10 or more (100 points)

Scoring :

165 and under: Your computer room is either very well protected or computer room down time will not affect your business.
165-799: You have trouble spots in your computer room; proactive steps taken now will help you avoid trouble in the future.
800 and over: Your computer room and quite possibly your job are in serious jeopardy. Look into ways of securing your computer room before disaster strike’s time is ticking.

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